


Anachronism

by nostalgia



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-25 23:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/275962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgia/pseuds/nostalgia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan Redfern agrees to travel with the Doctor, and has to deal with the terms of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anachronism

Joan Redfern is a product of her times. She expects to be courted, and it takes her a while to realise that the Doctor does not court. He seduces, he enraptures, he allows people to share his dream of a life. He takes her hand on a cold planet and Joan knows _this is it_ , this is what he does with his women. He has allowed her into his life and he no longer needs to woo her. This is what he thinks of as romance.

Joan expects a marriage, but she is a clever woman and by now she knows the Doctor. Living in his magical machine, travelling with him, kissing him in golden corridors. This is all he wants, this is his perfect happiness.

"If I wait for you to marry me," she says, "I will be waiting forever, won't I?"

He slips his fingers round her hand, presses his palm against hers. "I've been married, long time ago. I don't think I could do that again." Then he says, "What is a marriage anyway? I'd never leave you. I won't let you get hurt. You have a share of everything I have, which isn't very much."

"Oh, Doctor," she says, "you have everything." Why can't he see that?

He bounces on his heels and grips her hand more tightly in his own. "I don't know what else I can offer you. I'm not the type to settle down, not anymore. I've had that adventure, and I liked it, but I couldn't go through all that again." He sighs in resignation. "Maybe you should leave me. I can't give you what you want."

"I've come to accept that you come with a price. It's you or a normal life."

"Which do you choose? Because you only get one life."

Joan says "And there's only one Doctor," and that's that.

 

She knocks on his door one night (if it really is ever night on this strange ship of his) and stands in the doorway, watching him read on his bed.

"If I wait for marriage," she says, "I can never come in this room."

The Doctor puts his book down and stands up, walks over to her. "I don't expect anything from you. I like what we have. I don't want you to think I'm expecting..."

"To sleep with me? To make love to me?" She smiles at him, tender and so human. "You may be a story, but you're still a man. I've been married before, it doesn't shock me." She folds her hands in front of her. "Is it what you want?"

"It's up to you. It's always up to you."

"That's not what I asked you."

The Doctor rubs the back of his neck. "I can't. I can't make the decision. I control too much of your life and I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage."

"What would you do if I asked to leave?"

"Take you home," he says, without hesitation but with obvious reluctance. "If that's what you want..." Joan thinks that he is scared to say it.

"Well then, is it taking advantage if I can leave you whenever I want?"

The Doctor leans down, kisses her gently and then he says, "Martha might not like it." The women get on better these days, but there is still a tension between them, and discomfort of proximity and thought.

"Is Martha your mistress?"

The Doctor shakes his head and smiles. "She's my conscience."

"And what am I?"

The Doctor takes a breath and considers. "I'm not entirely sure. I never am."

 

She has not slept with a man since her husband went to war never to return. She knows the Doctor will be different, for better or for worse.

He slips her from her nightdress and lies above her. This she knows from her past, this is not alien. He tries to touch every inch of her skin, kisses his way across her chest and she can't help blushing. The Doctor takes her hands and guides her way across his body.

"We can stop any time," he says, planting a kiss against her throat.

She doesn't want to stop. She wants to. She doesn't. She buries her shame and reaches between their bodies, finds his penis and pulls, gently. He gasps and his back arches, hips thrusting towards hers. He closes his eyes and she wonders if this is how John would have looked captured in passion.

But John is dead and she must not think of him now. Not with the Doctor above her, saying her name in a hushed voice and leaning down to kiss her lips.

Soon he is inside her and, there, a memory, she knows how this is done. But he expects too much of her even in this, looks confused and frightened when she doesn't move as he expects her to. They pause in silence, and in the Doctor's awkward pose she sees John Smith, terrified on their wedding night. Joan closes her eyes to dispel the image, opens them again to see the Doctor staring down at her.

"Maybe this was a bad idea," he says, starting to pull away.

"No," she says, and moves her legs to hold him in place. She thinks of a time long after her own, of how freely the Doctor and Martha touch each other. Not even lovers and they will press their bodies together, Martha's legs parting as the Doctor spins her round. She tries to think like Martha Jones, and places a hand behind the Doctor's neck, pulls him down to kiss him.

As they move she is sure he wants to speak, but each time he starts he stops just as quickly, afraid of breaking something fragile. He begins to touch her with a fevered insistence, as though eager to finish and afraid to do so on his own. Finally her body escapes her mind and shudders around him, and then he falls to the frantic movements she remembers from another man.

He stole her from the prison of time, but she is still locked deep within it.

 

"I'm sorry," she says, when they lie together afterwards. Part of her rebels -- _he_ should apologise, for being outside of time and too comfortable in his own body. All this warm skin is indecent, they are not even married.

He drapes an arm around her waist and holds her still, traps her in his bed and in his life. "Why are you sorry?"

"I think sometimes you brought me with you because you felt guilty. Because you took John away from me."

"I'd have run," he says against her shoulder. "If I didn't want you with me I'd have been off without a word."

"I miss him," she says, and the Doctor says nothing. There is nothing he can say.


End file.
